While the current box office hit “The Martian” by director
Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon depicts coordination
between the U.S. and Chinese space programs, that’s not the way
it’s playing out in the real world.

Secretary of the Air Force
Deborah Lee James on Wednesday at the National
Press Club responded to a question about the U.S. blocking
efforts at by Russia and China and over 100 other countries to
ensure the disarmament of outer space by alleging that China and
Russia are engaging in activities in space that are are
“worrisome.”

Sec. James stated “we don’t have weapons in space in the
United States.” She then added: “Now what has been very
worrisome in recent years is that some other countries around
the world, notably China and Russia, are investing and they’re
testing in different types of capabilities which could shoot
satellites out of orbit, and do other things to our capabilities
and the capabilities of allies in space, which is worrisome.”
[Question at 54:00, video
of event.]

Sec. James’ comments were in response to a question this
reporter submitted citing a UN vote last month which was 122
in favor to 4 against disarmament outer space. The U.S. was
one of the nations voting against the resolution. [full question
and response below.]

John Hughes, the president of the National Press Club and
moderator of the event, in his introduction of James, noted that
she was recently made “the principle space adviser with expanded
responsibilities of all Pentagon space activities.”

Still, Sec. James stated today “I’m not familiar with that
vote.”

Alice Slater, who is with Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and
the Abolition 2000 coordinating committee and is a leading
activist on disarmament said today: “It’s hard to believe that
the U.S. Secretary of the Air Force is unaware of the U.S.
military program to ‘dominate and control the military use of
space’ as set forth in Pentagon documents such as Vision 2020 [PDF]
or that the U.S. also has tested anti-satellite
weapons in space.”

A summary of the votes in question on Nov. 3 on the UN’s
website states:
“The text, entitled ‘No first placement of weapons in outer
space,’ reaffirmed the importance and urgency of the objective
to prevent an outer space arms race and the willingness of
States to contribute to that common goal.” The UN summery
references a “draft treaty, introduced by China and the Russian
Federation. … The draft was approved by a recorded vote of 122
in favour to 4 against (Israel, Ukraine, United States,
Georgia), with 47 abstentions.” Yet, James, in her remarks
painted Russia and China as the aggressors.

But consider Sec. James’ exact words. While she indicates the
U.S.: “we don’t have weapons in space” — she has a different
standard when talking about Russia and China: They “are
investing and they’re testing in different types of capabilities
which could shoot satellites out of orbit” — which the U.S.
obviously is doing as well. There is a race to weaponize space
though it would seem Russia, China and most other nations are
making moves through the UN to stop it and the U.S. government
appears to be hindering that.

In addition to Vision 2020, the Project for a New American
Century also called for U.S. control of space as one of its
goals: “CONTROL THE NEW ‘INTERNATIONAL COMMONS’ OF SPACE AND
‘CYBERSPACE,’ and pave the way for the creation of a new
military service — U.S. Space Forces — with the mission of space
control.” [archived
PDF]

Slater added: “It is common knowledge that when the wall came
down in Europe, Gorbachev and Reagan met in Rekjavik and were
prepared to negotiate the total elimination of nuclear weapons,
except the negotiations were aborted because Reagan refused to
give up his dream of a U.S. military shield in space, commonly
referred to at the time as Star Wars.

“Less well known, but nevertheless true, is that Putin
offered Clinton a deal to cut our arsenals of 16,000 nuclear
weapons to a 1,000 weapons each and call all the parties to the
table to negotiate for nuclear abolition if the U.S. would cease
its plans to put missile bases in Eastern Europe. Clinton
refused and Putin backed out of his offer. Shortly thereafter,
Bush actually walked out of the 1972 Anti-Balllistic Missile
Treaty and put US missiles and bases in Turkey, Romania and
Poland. …

“In 2008, Russia and China proposed a draft treaty to ban
space weapons which the U.S. blocked from going forward in the
consensus bound committee on disarmament in Geneva. This year
the U.S. voted to abstain from a Russian proposal to ban weapons
in space at the UN First Committee of the General Assembly,
joining only Israel and Palau, in not going forward to support
the ban.”

In a quest for increased transparency in journalism,
here are background material on the piece above.

I asked a couple of other questions about air wars and
killer drones which were not asked, though several questions
were asked about drones, including one about killing of
civilians:

Here were the questions I submitted in writing before the
event:

Q: airwars.org estimates
that the current bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria over the
last 482 days has leveled about 8,600 strikes and killed 682
to 2,104 civilians. Do you have an estimate for the number of
civilians killed by U.S. airstrikes?

Q: The Guardian
reports on four former drone pilots who recently wrote
an impassioned plea to the Obama administration, calling for a
rethink of a military tactic that they say has “fueled the
feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism and groups like
Isis, while also serving as a fundamental recruitment tool
similar to Guantánamo Bay … We cannot sit silently by and
witness tragedies like the attacks in Paris, knowing the
devastating effects the drone program has overseas and at
home.” Do you have any information on the long term
consequences of the US government’s killer drone program? Can
you tell us what countries US drones operate in? How do you
respond to their letter from the former drone pilot
whistleblowers — these are people who left lucrative careers
operating drones because they concluded it was morally
contemptible to continue.

Neither was asked, though the moderator, Hughes, did ask
a number of questions about drones and raised the issue of
civilian deaths in this question:

Q: You talked about the effort to minimize collateral
damage, or civilian deaths, in this effort how satisfied are
you that you’ve been able to minimize civilian deaths in this
campaign? And as you step up this effort now, will the risk of
more civilian deaths rise?

Deborah Lee James: I am satisfied that our combined efforts
and the way we are approaching this campaign is unprecedented
in the history of warfare in terms of the care that we take to
do everything possible to try to avoid civilian casualties. Is
it 100 percent? No, because there are, from time to time,
terrible tragedies. But with the thousands of sorties [a
deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an
aircraft, ship, or troops, from a strongpoint] that have been
flown, the fact that there have only been a handful of these
incidents, I think, is almost a miracle. So I am convinced
we’re doing a good job, I saw some of it in action myself when
I was in the CAOC [Combined Air and Space Operations Center]
and the CGOC [Company Grade Officer’s Council], and enormous
care is taken.

Here’s the full question about weaponization of space:

Q: This questioner says, ‘One month ago at the UN there was
a vote for disarmament in space. The vote was 122 for and 4
against, the U.S. was one of the four against. Why is the U.S.
against disarmament in space?

Deborah Lee James: “Well, I’m not familiar with that vote,
but what I will tell you about space and the proposition of
space is this — number one, we don’t have weapons in space in
the United States. Number two, we’re very focused on not
creating debris in space. So to back up for just a minute, if
you go back 20, 30 years there were relatively few countries,
and few companies for that matter, who even could get
themselves to space, but flash forward to the present day and
there are many more countries and many more companies. Plus
there is debris in space, there is space junk. So you’ve got
thousands of these pieces of material whirling around at 40 or
50 thousand miles per hour and even a small piece of debris
can do some serious damage to a billion dollar satellite. So
debris is bad and we want to make sure that we minimize that
at all costs. Now what has been very worrisome in recent years
is that some other countries around the world, notably China
and Russia are investing and they’re testing in different
types of capabilities which could shoot satellites out of
orbit, and do other things to our capabilities and the
capabilities of allies in space- which is worrisome. And so
what we have said is we need to focus more attention on space,
we need to invest more in space, the resiliency of space, and
we need to at all times get this point across- –particularly
to some of these other countries that are investing and
testing in these ways — that debris is bad, that debris hurts
all of us.”